A battery requires the concentration of energy in order to serve its purpose, and the uncontrolled release of concentrated energy poses an inherent safety risk. In electric vehicles (EVs), for example, the battery system design is driven by the spiraling mitigation of this risk—from lower energy battery chemistry selection, to embedded cell safety elements, to reduced packing density, to battery management system (BMS) monitoring and safety circuits, to vehicle structural protection. These mitigation layers have been only partially successful in preventing catastrophic battery events, and come at the price of increased cost and weight that directly limit EV commercial viability. While more efficient mitigation approaches may be possible, in order to break out of this spiral and achieve the full potential of EVs, battery cells must be made to be self-sufficient with intrinsic mitigation of their inherent risks.